REVEALED: April Fool's Day tech pranks

The web is a dangerous place to be on April 1, especially if you are easily fooled by pranks such as Google's self-driving NASCAR and 8-bit Maps version for the NES, Richard Branson's expedition to the center of the earth, Toshiba's custom-shaped tablets or Flickr's classic graphics photo reformatting service.

Google teams around the globe are notorious for their in-depth and almost believable April Fool's Day jokes and this year was no different.

Google's prolific selection of pranks included a self-driving NASCAR, 8-bit maps for NES users, a Jargon-Bot for Google Apps that helps you translate business speak into layman's terms, a multitasking mode for Google Chrome, expanded Australian Streetview images captured by kangaroos, a Gmail Tap morse code keyboard, and Click-to-Teleport AdWords.

The Next Web has posted a roundup of Google April Fool's Day jokes at

http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/04/01/googles-april-fools-jokes-continue-meet-really-advanced-search-and-multiple-cursors-for-chrome/

Google wasn't the only one catching out unsuspecting internet surfers. Airbnb advertised rooms for rent on the International Space Station for $4,112 a night, Flickr started updating its platform to feature photos with a black and white Atkinson dither, WestJet introduced child-free flights for adults and Kargo Kids for kids, and Richard Branson

showed off his plans for journeys through the center of the earth with Virgin Volcanic.

Sony unveiled the world's smallest ultrabook, the Vaio Q and Toshiba launched custom-shaped tablets that match consumer's personalities.

TechCrunch, Quora, VentureBeat, and PCMag also spotlight some great April Fool's Day technology pranks.